For UNM Community and Regional Planning, CRP527Presenter/instructor: Rich Schrader

Week 3

Week 3: Hydrology concepts & Anthropocentric Impacts on Water Quantity and Timing

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How much water will this watershed produce?

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How much yield depends on watershed context

•Elevation

•Aridity of area

•Macroscopic Dynamics

like ENSO

•Vegetation types & cover

•Aspect (north, south particularly)

of slopes

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Water Yield FactorsGroundwater and surface water interactions

• bedrock geology

• groundwater hydrology factors

• soil salinity

• bank storage in the alluvium

Microclimatic aspects

Cropping patterns (types, timing)

Water conservation (both urban and rural approaches)

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Macroscopic Dynamics & Indicators : ENSO

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/ENSO/enso.mei_index.html

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ENSO over the past 65 years

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Factors for ET

• Capillary action of soil and plants

• Shading of soil

• Sublimation of snow/rain in canopy

• Soil salinity & drainage

• Reservoir storage issues

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Current water data for NM• John D’Antonio, NM State Engineers said 2/1/06 that this

drought (starting this fall) is 5th worse in over 100 record.• NM is way behind in its capacity to deliver water to

Texas on Pecos River. Need to purchase 12,000 acre feet this year to meet court settlement.

• Water settlements (Aamodt, Taos and Navajo/San Juan River) will cost millions. The Taos and Pojoaque basin settlements will cost about $20 each for the state of NM.

Nationwide data:http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/index.shtml for the new website of Water Quality Information Center

(WQIC) of USDA.

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UNM STUDIES OF ET OF WATER USED BY TREES IN THE MIDDLE RIO GRANDE (Dahm, Cleverly, etal.)

• Uses micrometeorological methods such as Leaf Area Index (LAI). Uses a camera shooting up through the canopy which is corrected with aerial photography.

• Indicates monthly time scale change as a result of leaf area. Groundwater levels change with a different time scale (diurnally with ET of trees & seasonally with irrigation season)

• Uses a 3-dimensional sonic anemometer which measures wind speed in three dimensions and temperature (by measuring speed of sound which is a direct function of temperature).

http://bosque.unm.edu/~cleverly/

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Landscape setting• Look at topographic map of state of New Mexico

to evaluate different conditions• Where are the big cities? • Where are active agricultural areas? • Where are the larger watershed boundaries and

historic and current efforts for inter-basin transfers?

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Policy Issues and Questions

• Rio Grande Compact and the precedent of “Area of Origin” policies

• Water use efficiency• Water economics• Water culture• Bioregional equity question with new

technology (“cloud seeding”) and oil/water dependency

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Remember good principles

• “Do no harm” – The Precautionary Principle• Area of origin concerns and policy

precedents• Free markets (deregulation) are tricky when

a “public good” is concerned. Consider case study of privatization in Bolivia, Rajastan, and large US cities such as Stockton